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Thread: Yesterday's Mail Had a Nice Surprise

  1. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    Did it come from Tomohito Iida? Iida and So Yamashita both have some left.
    David,

    Yep, from Tomohito Iida, he's down to just the large ones with Oak inserts. I'd been back and forth on getting one, no way to justify the cost but......

    In a year or even in a few months I will forget the couple of dollars the gauge cost but will have the pleasure of working with a piece of art for ever.

    ken

  2. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Holbrook View Post
    I guess the scale question is relative. Unless we mark everything off with dividers, we need to figure where a mortise and the tenon need to be located on given pieces of wood don't we? Sure we can mark the locations with a ruler or other measuring devise that has some scale we can measure from, but wouldn't it be easier to have a scale on the marking devise? Sure we can mark based on chisel width, but which chisel if we don't have any kind of scale to get a rough idea of scale? If we use a story board isn't that a scale too?

    I may have made a slight measuring mistake or two today working on some cabinets. Maybe I need to take just a little more off something to get a snug fit. Wouldn't it be convenient to use the gauge to measure and have it set for the right marking distance at the same time? Want I get the most accurate setting by setting the distance with the actual knife blade I will mark the piece with? It just seems to me that less transposing of distances between devises results in less error.
    Mike,

    I answered too quickly with too little thought about your question. Like you I have things metric and things fractional in my shop. BTW, several years ago I moved to thinking in metric instead of fractional and that change has been the greatest driver in reducing measuring error in my shop. I will use a measure of some kind to establish the first piece's size and then from that piece mark off the others. I expect that is how most work. Using scales to establish that first piece which is what I think you are saying, yeah I expect a well marked scale on a marking tool could be very handy.

    ken

  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by ken hatch View Post
    David,

    Yep, from Tomohito Iida, he's down to just the large ones with Oak inserts. I'd been back and forth on getting one, no way to justify the cost but......

    In a year or even in a few months I will forget the couple of dollars the gauge cost but will have the pleasure of working with a piece of art for ever.

    ken
    The fit and finish of the irons themselves is something that nearly convinces me to do the same thing. I'm going over in my head how I'd make something similar, but have no idea how to do small work that accurately without literally taking bar stock and grinding it away and then filing it. And that would take forever (and it still wouldn't be as good).

    Good things cost money!!

  4. #19
    So has a couple of kinshiro gauges left, but the crooks at paypal are literally taking 7% on the currency exchange. I can't get on with that. If it would've been a reasonable amount on their part, I would be telling you that I ordered one already. They're crooks - 7% on the currency and then a fee to the seller. Highway robbery.

  5. #20
    Mike - what is the narrowest mortise that your gauge will mark (as in, the minimum distance between the irons)?

  6. #21
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    I wasn't thinking about using multiple scales just trying to decide if one scale, on one of my marking devises, might in some instances be useful and eliminate the need for other measuring tools.
    It could be useful in some instances. The best way to put the question to rest would be to acquire one and find out.

    On the Tite-MarkŪ gauge, the threads are 20 per inch. That means a full turn of the adjuster moves the blade 0.05". Half revolution and quarter revolution adjustments would be 0.025" and 0.0125" respectively. Pretty soon one gets a feel for the adjustment without a scale.

    With a good scale, if one was looking for center, it might speed the ability to hit it right on. Measure with the gauge, set to center test and most likely if there was an adjustment it would be rather slight.

    Another thing that helps me measure in the shop is a bunch of wood pieces of various known sizes. They can be used like feeler gauges. They are very helpful when setting up things like the fence on a rabbet or plow plane. They can be used for checking depths of shoulders on M&T or lap joints. Chisels can also be used as a verification gauge.

    Most of my actual measuring is done with an old four fold rule or a tape measure. It used to be a struggle to measure and make everything with gnat's eyelash accuracy. Now my work is easier with measuring or comparing to make the pieces fit together.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. David - I found a trick on paypal for paying in foreign currency. You have to use a bank acct. through paypal, but you can change setting to use your bank's exchange rate. I bought my last couple chisels from Stu this way and it saved me 5+%.

    it's explained in this lifehacker link: http://lifehacker.com/5957808/avoid-...-little-option

    I think I had to switch payment option to my debit card (as opposed to my bank acct.) to switch the option, but the exchange fee was close to zero.

  8. #23
    I didn't say, but I should have yesterday, that I ordered Stu's higher priced kehiki or whatever the frig it's called, and I did so not just because of price but because it has wide blades in their beam thickness, but those wide blades have smaller blades of super blue steel welded to them, and can go closer together than the at blades on the kinshiro. I thought I had a mortise marking gauge of the cheapest type, but I may have thrown it away long ago in frustration at the beams being hard to control (something that after several years of small tool fiddling and minor plane making I could fix pretty easily now).

    Anyway...

    ...i opted to buy the gauge from stu's store in yen and let the system sort it out later to see what would happen. couldn't be any worse than the near 7% they wanted. My account is linked with a paypal credit card, so I opted to use the credit card to pay for the purchase in yen.

    Paypal's conversion before my scheme: 100.5 yen per dollar
    Paypal credit card's conversion: 104.65 yen per dollar

    That's quite a loophole, and one I can live with.

    I ultimately didn't get the kinshiro because I couldn't bear to part with that many dollars right now (so yamashita has a large with ebony, but it would've been $350 or more with no guarantee that I could get a good mark for a 6mm chisel unless the gauge blades were slightly less than 3mm thick. )

  9. #24
    David,

    If you need to mark for a 3mm chisel, the Kinshiro is not the gauge you need. I just measured mine and the cutters are 4mm apart.

    ken

  10. #25
    That would've been fine.. It's less than 6, I maybe should've gone for it but did buy another different one off of peebay to go along with the one from stu's page.

  11. #26
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    Sorry to bring this back up but I got lost between this and two other threads about marking devices.

    David, the only double marking gauge I have is a Cullen from LV. I bought it after watching Kingshott's DVD on making mortises and tenons. He uses & likes a double pin gauge which is why I bought the Cullen. Unfortunately the Cullen will not lock up and when it half locks it does not lock square. I should have returned it but thought I might be able to fix it and have been researching the Cullen's here on SMC. Turns out several other people have had the same problem with the same Cullen gauge but so far I have not found anyone who has successfully repaired this gauge. If the Cullen locked there would be about 1/8" between the pins. The bars the pins are in prevent the user from getting the pins any closer together.

    I have been trying to convince myself that I could get along without a double gauge. I was even giving some thought to ordering one of Stu's single blade gauges with a scale instead of the double blade marking gauge. I am still not sure which would be the better option for me, so I am thinking on it.

  12. #27
    I don't think I could tolerate doing stuff like making cabinets without a mortise gauge unless I laid out every single mortise at once and could set each line one time. but I never work like that.

    My pin gauge has a limit of how close it can get together, and I think it's effectively 1/4" (it's a crown or something equivalent). I also have a beech mortise gauge somewhere, but the brass rods holding the pins are so tight that it's really undesirable to use (whereas the nicer gauge has the screw adjustment. The crown gauge isn't bad to use, I should give the pins more attention, they're a bit long, but it's otherwise a decent gauge. I've never tried any of the cullen gauges, but they look nice.

    (it looks like the crown #154 is now also about $70 - I remember it being more like $45, but I got it a while ago).

  13. #28
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    The Cullen gauge looks nice and and appeared to be better made than the Crown or Marples gauges too. The holes in the fence are oversized compared to the marking arms though. The single blade cutting/marking gauge I also bought locks up square but the sliding brass rod that holds the adjustable inside pin has a rough surface that protrudes beyond the track it fits in. The picture of the Cullen mortise gauge in the LV on line store does not appear to have the same issue. I think they must have had a bad run of that part or something. Also the resin-impregnated wood which they use to make these gauges is so hard it takes a fair amount of pressure against it to hold it in place.

    David, did you get your gauge from Stu yet? Maybe you will post a few impressions once you get a chance to use it. Funny you should mention cabinets David. I am in the process of reinforcing some old cabinets after which I plan to make some nicer cabinets

  14. #29
    No, I didn't get it yet. I'd imagine that it's probably something made in miki or somewhere else and it's a two stop trip to get here instead of from stock (but you never know).

    I'll post my thoughts about it when I get it and use it, especially since it's sort of middle of the road in price but should be ready to go out of the box.

  15. Quote Originally Posted by ken hatch View Post
    A couple of weeks ago during a midnight prowl of Japanese tools I ordered a Kinshiro marking Gauge, It showed up yesterday. It's a beautiful tool.


    Hey, I recognize that!


    Thanks for the beech. I have some ideas....
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 12-03-2014 at 7:11 AM.

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